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Throughout the entire Christmas break, Coach Walsh vigorously pushed the Varsity Soccer team every morning in practice and mentally prepared us for the up-and-coming game against the Greenhill Hornets. We wanted to start the new year off right as the Greenhill game was the first soccer game of 2019 and arguably one of the most important for our season. Greenhill previously beat St. Mark’s 2-1 and beat Kinkaid 2-1, even in the Falcon’s home territory. We knew we had our work cut out for us.

Coach Walsh’s reconnaissance scouted out Greenhill at two of its big games, gathering information about the Hornet players and play style. We knew exactly the team we were up against, the talent, the weapons, and that this team could be one of the best in the entire league. Game day came and our team was both physically and mentally prepared to put up a fight against the Hornets.

The news report forecasted heavy rain at the time the game was going to start. Nevertheless, the game was on and nothing could stop the determined Cistercian team from conquering a formidable foe in their home territory. The setbacks of near freezing temperatures and rain drenching our uniforms did not discourage any of our determination that we had for winning the game. The referee blew the first whistle and the fight started immediately. We pressured them at full force during the first fifteen minutes of the game. Zain Dabbous sprinted head on for a loose ball and managed to break through the back line of the Greenhill defense. However, before he could pull off a shot, he was fouled inside the box, giving us a penalty kick! We stepped up to take the free kick, but sadly the goalie made an excellent save. Even with another setback, we continued to push on. At halftime, the game remained scoreless.

The second half started with heavier rain and our team continued with the same ferocity that we had in the beginning of the first half of the game. About midway into the second half, Kyle Blessing managed to steal the ball from a defender directly in front of the goal. He shot, but the goalie tipped the ball over the goal, resulting in a corner kick. Evan Anderson took the corner kick and the ball bounced around inside the box until Reefe Harrison managed to get a foot on the ball and scored to the right of the goalie!

With a one goal lead, we had no intention of easing up on Greenhill. Soon after, Evan took another corner kick. Similar to the first one, the ball bounced inside the box until defender, Anthony Farhat, made contact with the ball where he slipped it past the keeper. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Greenhill managed to cross the ball to an open forward, who headed the ball just out of the reach of JB Hudnall, the goalkeeper, making it a single goal game. With an intense match coming to its end, Jimmy Garda used his immense speed to steal the ball from the goalie and pass it into the net. We thought we won the game. Greenhill thought otherwise and managed to score another cross immediately after Jimmy’s goal. We managed to hold them off for the remaining minutes, giving us our first win of 2019 with a final score of 3-2!

With our team’s incredible work ethic and determination, driven by our phenomenal coaches, we managed to win the first game of the SPC season. We still have a lot of improvements to be made. However, a win against Greenhill is an excellent start to the long season.